I have a 3TB Seagate GoFlex Desk external hard drive that I use to store videos to play with a Patriot Box Office (PBO) Core media player. Until I reached 2TB of data, it worked well. Once I passed 2TB of videos, each video will play for a few minutes then a I/O error will come up and the PBO firmware shuts down.

I have read that the PBO only supports hard drives up to 2TB, even though with up to 2TB of data, this 3TB unit worked just fine. The reason that the PBO only supports 2TB isn't clear, but it's either an operating system limitation which Patriot doesn't seem interested in fixing, or a chip limitation which cannot be fixed easily. The owner's manual does state that the PBO firmware can be upgraded to support higher capacity drives!

So, what I am wondering is, is it possible to do something on the drive to make it appear that it is a 2TB drive so I can use it again with the PBO? I have taken data off that drive to see if it would go back to the way it used to be, with no luck! I've read that creating two partitions also does not work!

Many thanks for any ideas you may have.

quickcurrent

Change max lba on the drive to 2 TB. Mhdd can do that.

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
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Thanks, dobrevjetser and Spildit. I have looked up the online MHDD manual and it looks good.

Just one question that I don't see answered in the manual before I start. Will setting the MaxLBA to a number equivalent to 2TB destroy all the data on the drive? Will it destroy only everything above 2TB? i.e I now have less than 2TB on the drive, so if I defrag and move all data to the first 2TB on the drive will that data all be preserved?

Normally it wont destroy the data, but everything above 2TB will be inaccessible.
However, your filesystem will have to be adjusted. (shrink the partition).
Moreover, the hpa command probably wont work over usb (Thx to Vulcan who was so kind to remind me this is a usb drive), so you'll have to take the drive out of the enclosure.

So, do this:

First BACK UP all your data on that drive
Use the HPA command
Format your drive (now 2TB)
Reinstall your data

Dobre

PS: Verify your backup to be sure its ok; you wont be the first to make a backup and reformat the drive to find out after that, that the backup is corrupt or unusable

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Datarecovery in Belgium, Holland, France and Germany
Datarecoverytools http://www.drtools.eu

I have two PBOs hooked up to two different TVs, so the data is safely backed up onto other HDs. I did this because of the two TVs and also because as we all know all HDs eventually fail and I don't like to lose all that good stuff!

Taking the HD out of the enclosure and putting it in my PC was something I had not planned on doing and am not sure it will work as my desktop is a 32 bit machine running Windows XP Pro! We have other PCs but all laptops.

Also I'd prefer to not have to format the drive if I can salvage the data on it below 2TB because it will take hours to copy the data back on it after formatting. Is there any other software that might do that, preferably Windows based? I do remmeber DOS but the PC is running Windows so I don't know if the DOS shell built into Windows XP is good enough to run MHDD.

I don't know the PBO media player, so there are many of your questions that I can't answer (e.g. those that depend on whatever filesystem type and DRM that it uses). Therefore I'll just reply to one of them:


No. You must use real DOS to run MHDD - but if you don't want to remove the drive from its enclosure (thereby voiding its warranty?) to connect it via SATA, then discussions about using MHDD for your purposes are a waste of time anyway.

Thanks Vulcan. I thought that might be the case.

So, in order to set this 3TB HD to 2TB with MHDD, I'd have to have a 64 bit machine running pure DOS, since 32 bit machines can only recognize up to 2TB hard drives internally. The only reason my PC is able to recognize this 3TB drive is because it's an external unit with built in support to talk to a 32 bit machine! MHDD won't do me much good, will it? I have some old PCs around, not currently in use, running pure DOS, but all are older 32 bit machines.

So what I need is some Windows based app capable of communicating with an external USB SATA hard drive that can change the LBA from 3TB to 2 TB. Anything out there that can do that, not necessarily freeware?

Thanks.

Not true - you're thinking of different (e.g. BIOS, partition table and OS) limitations, which don't affect MHDD.


Although you could hit other obstacles, which we won't discover until you try, I don't see a reason why those PCs (assuming they have a SATA interface and their BIOS allows the SATA controller to be put into IDE / legacy / compatibility mode) would prevent MHDD from accessing the drive.


Personally I have never seen such Windows software "off-the-shelf", although I've written something similar for another OS a few years ago. An application like you're requesting would need to send a specific type of (unusual) command, and for the USB-SATA bridge chip in that enclosure to support that command - this is due to the complications of USB not transporting native ATA commands. I wish you good luck in finding what you want, and perhaps someone else has seen something like that. I think at some stage, you may find that spending $100 on a new 2TB drive may be the quicker / easier option for you.

I'm afraid those old PCs are PIIs, no SATA back in those days, only PATA.

I never expected to be able to find a solution for my dilemna, but it was a good try. I don't know if it's worth pursuing a solution to turn this 3TB into a 2TB any further. I think a new 2TB is indeed the solution for this, at least until, and if, Patriot ever provides support for the 3TB drives.

If I ever do run into something to solve this issue, I'll post the solution.

Thanks to all that contributed to this effort. It was fun trying.

Another way to reduce capacity is to cut head off in some data rec tool but need to go to pro.

ISTM that the Patriot 3TB issue is a very peculiar one. I say this because the bridge firmware in Seagate's GoFlex 3TB externals is configured with 4KB LBAs, which effectively makes it a 4Kn drive. Seagate (and WD) does it this way in order to make their products compatible with Windows XP.

The 2TiB capacity limit is not really a capacity limit per se, but is due to the fact that the maximum number of LBAs that can be accommodated within an MBR partition table is 0xFFFFFFFF, ie 32 bits. At 512-bytes per LBA, the maximum capacity is 2TiB, but at 4096 bytes per LBA, the maximum becomes 16TiB. Therefore the number of LBAs for a 3TB drive is well within the 32-bit limit.

If you examine the boot sector of the GoFlex drive, you will see that its BIOS Parameter Block reports a sector size of 4096 bytes and a cluster size of 1 sector. Some applications and devices don't appear to understand this. Windows 7 Backup is one of them.

That said, it appears that the PBO is not phased by the non-standard file system ... up to a point. The fact that it baulks at the 2TiB point suggests to me that it must be counting the bytes rather than the number of LBAs, if I'm making any sense.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I think you're right, fzabkar, the PBO appears to be counting bytes. I had files all over the drive when looking at them with the map displayed by Smart Defrag 2, from when I had over 2TB of data on it. I have now moved everything below the 2TB capacity, but haven't yet tested whether the PBO will now play each file properly, I will as soon as I get a chance.

In the meantime, I've posed the question of how to reduce the drive's size to 2TB to Seagate tech support, it will be interesting to see what Seagate has to say!

Seagate was not of much help. Here is what they had to say in two separate email messages:

"Thank you for contacting Seagate Support.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, but we unfortunately do not have any official support for our desktop/portable drives used in the environment you are describing. Also, please note that removing the drive from its enclosure would void the warranty.

One thing you could consider is reformatting the drive. Please consider that formatting a hard drive will erase all information on the drive, but you would be able to choose the maximum size that you would like to partition and set it for under 2TB. I am not certain if this would solve your issue, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

Other than that, your best bet might be to use a smaller drive with this device. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience. If I had any further information I would help, but our drives are only designed to function with the operating systems listed on the box."

and

"Thank you for contacting Seagate Support. I understand you are still having issues with your drive and I would be more than happy to help.

As the previous agent mentioned, we don't support the use of this drive on media player type of devices. Saying that, I can't recommend any program that will change the LBA of our drive. I also don't recommend using any program that can since there is a high likelihood that you will cause the drive to fail. If you've recently purchased the drive, I recommend taking the drive back to where you purchased it and exchange it for a 2TB drive. I apologize for the inconvenience."

I am also still getting the I/O errors. Looks like the only way to go with these PBO units is to stick to 2TB hard drives!

FYI, WD's 3TB My Books can be configured for either 4KB or 512B sectoring by using WD's Quick Formatter for external drives. I am not aware of any similar utility for Seagate's external HDDs, though.

FWIW, here is [Beta] Release P70R2 (Apr 04 2011) PBO firmware:
http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/sho ... e-Releases

I notice that the player is based on Realtek Mars AVHDD-on-NAND hardware and embedded Linux. IIRC, Seagate's FreeAgent Theatre and FAT+ media players use a similar SoC. There was a very active thread at Seagate's forums some time ago where several users (eg "playdude") hacked the firmware to add extra features. You might like to see if any of them have managed to get 3TB drives to work on their FAT or FAT+ players.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks, fzabkar, I have the latest firmware on my PBO.

I'll check out the playdude's hacking.

Hi Dear Friend quickcurrent

I Dont Think You Need To Do Hard Work Just Use Simple Logic
U Want 3TB Drive To Work In 2TB Right.
Then Go To Easy And 100% Safe Logic First.
Just Repartition To 2TB And Leave 1TB Space Blank.
Its The Easy And 100% SAFE Logic Dont Do Anything With The Drives Defult Parameter IF You Realy Dont Know What To Do And What Happend When.

Yours Friend.
Jignesh

[quote="fzabkar"]FYI, WD's 3TB My Books can be configured for either 4KB or 512B sectoring by using WD's Quick Formatter for external drives. I am not aware of any similar utility for Seagate's external HDDs, though.

FWIW, here is [Beta] Release P70R2 (Apr 04 2011) PBO firmware:
http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/sho ... e-Releases

Dear Bother Fzabkar
You R Absolutly Right If The Bios Is Not Capable To Accept +3TB Drives And We Need To Work On 3TB Drive This Is The Proper And Good Way To Upgread Bios.Then Your Device Working Normal With 3TB Drives. Fzabakar If He Dont Know How To Upgrad Bios And Make Any Mistaq Or Flash The Wrong Unsupported Bios On The Box Then Problem Is Solved For Permenant So Easy Way Is Make Partition 2TB.
If I Am Wrong Then Correct Me Brother.

Yours Friend
Jignesh

That's what I thought but ...


Perhaps the OP should try anyway. It makes sense to me.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Thanks, but I've read multiple times that does not work with the PBO. So there is no point going through all the work and time to re-try something that has been established does not work.

I have not read anywhere that anyone has been able to get a 3TB drive working with a PBO. What puzzles me now is how it ever worked for me without the I/O error. It only started giving me the error after I passed the 2TB data threshold. Now I have taken data off the drive to get back below 2TB, optimized the drive to place all data below the 2TB mark and still no go! It's like the PBO only found out I had a 3TB drive after I went by the 2TB point and now it remembers! I didn't realize they programmed AI into the PBO, lol.

I have P70R2 on this PBO!